Tuesday, March 27, 2012

In order to find information about the effects of media on teenage sexuality, it is important to examine academic sources that may offer insight into the topic. There has not been very much research done on this topic, which is why I am looking forward to researching the topic and hopefully offering more insight into the media effects on teenage sexuality.

The first source that my group is using is an academic paper called "Link Between Sexual Media Content and Pregnancy, Hostility." It is a summary of a study that was conducted. The journal contains two studies with results about sexual and social behavior and their connection to media content. The first study is the first to link viewing of racy television programs with risky sexual behavior by teens. It is the first to find an association between TV watching and teen pregnancy. The researchers recruited adolescents aged 12 to 17 and surveyed them three times by telephone between 2001 and 2004, asking about TV viewing habits, sexual behavior and pregnancy. The likelihood of getting pregnant, or getting someone else pregnant, increased steadily with the amount of sexual content they watched on TV.

The second source that my group is using is an academic paper called Teen Pregnancy ‘Pact’ Sparks Media Frenzy—But They Miss the Story. This article discusses a pregnancy pact that happened at a high school. The girls were impacted by what they saw in the media and were influenced to get pregnant because of what they saw on TV and in the media.

In addition to academic papers, we are looking into popular media coverage such as teen pregnancy shows on MTV. We will be analyzing what is seen in such TV shows and attempt to connect the information back to the research project. It is my hope that the information we find will offer new insight to the topic.

For more information about the Communications Studies Department at the University of Michigan, feel free to click the following link: http://www.lsa.umich.edu/comm/

I am working in a group in a Communications Studies class at the University of Michigan, and our group is interested in learning more about the effects of media on teenage sexuality. The question that we most hope to answer is as follows: how does media viewership affect teenage sexuality and what consequences (both positive and negative) does such viewership bring about? I feel as though this is an important topic because teenage sexuality is rarely discussed, and is a huge issue currently happening especially in the media. It is important that people be educated about the effects of media on teenage sexuality so that we as a community can improve our behaviors and habits.